Texas real estate market on track for another record-breaking year, but sales are flat in Houston

Texas real estate market on track for another record-breaking year

Texas home prices are up — and so are sales.
Photo courtesy of Keller Williams

Rising home prices can't deter Texas buyers. The Texas Quarterly Housing Report, released November 1, shows that despite near-record prices, home sales across the state are right on track with last year's record-breaking numbers.

In Q3 2016, 91,248 homes were sold in Texas, a 0.2 percent increase from the previous year. At the same time, the median home price grew 7 percent, to $214,000. That's just a slight dip from Q2 2016, when the median home price hit $215,000, the highest ever for the state.

"Given the recent slowdown in the Texas economy, the performance of the Texas housing market in the third quarter is remarkable," says Jim Gaines, chief economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, in a release. "The demand for housing in Texas continues to exceed supply, driving home prices upward."

Even with an uptick in prices, "Texas home sales in 2016 continue to edge out last year’s record-breaking sales volume, and in many local markets, growth is still very strong," says Leslie Rouda Smith, chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors.

Such is the case in San Antonio, where the median home price grew 7 percent, to $206,500. Home sales there also increased 7 percent from the previous year.

Austin-Round Rock, however, saw a 1 percent dip in sales from the previous year. The median home price increased almost 8 percent, to $279,900, the highest in the state.

There's a similar scenario in Houston, which saw a 1 percent decrease in sales and a 4.7 percent increase in median home price, now $225,000. In Dallas-Fort Worth, home sales remained flat, while the median price grew a whopping 9.4 percent, to $235,000.

But don't expect a lull for long: Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth were recently named the top two U.S. markets to invest in 2017, proving just how hot Texas is.